Dealing with symptoms of colds and flu while driving can be tricky
What works for one may not work for another, but natural therapies may enable drivers to heal more quickly while still maintaining the ability to keep on trucking.
By BARB KAMPBELL
The Trucker Staff
12/30/2008
Despite every effort to avoid the pitfalls of coming down with the dreaded cold, sinus infection, or even worse the flu, when you do get sick there are ways to deal with the symptoms and hopefully stay alert enough to keep driving your truck.
Over-the-counter medications, even the non-drowsy varieties, can cause those who take them to become quite drowsy, and that means trouble to those who are trying to stay alert out on the road.
One difficult thing for drivers is to get plenty of rest, but perhaps taking just an extra hour in the bunk during an illness can help ease the symptoms and speed along the recovery. Cold and flu symptoms make people more tired and they require more rest.
Drinking plenty of fluids will speed up recovery by helping to loosen mucus in the nose and chest. Fluids also help avoid dehydration caused by fever. Water is the most important and best liquid, but others may be helpful too, including fruit juice.
Stop smoking and avoid secondhand smoke. Any respiratory irritant, like smoking, will only make symptoms worse.
Gargling with salt water a few times a day can relieve sore and scratchy throats.
Rather than taking cough medicines that can cause drowsiness, try cough lozenges or hard candy to keep the throat moist and lessen coughs.
Saline drops applied to the nasal passages help moisten the irritated skin and loosens mucus.
Antihistamine medications block histamine, a substance that is released in response to allergies, which can cause a runny nose and sneezing. Antihistamines can help dry a runny nose and watery eyes. Some cause drowsiness and should not be used while driving, so it’s not a good idea to test them out until that can be done during off driving time.
Expectorants, another over-the-counter remedy work by thinning mucus so that it can be coughed up more easily.
Coughs that don’t produce mucus can be treated by taking antitussives that quiet and suppress the cough.
Decongestants may be helpful as well. They come in nasal sprays and in pill form and work by constricting our tightening the blood vessels located in the membranes of the nose and air passages.
According to HealthAtoZ.com, “the golden rule about treating the common cold is: if you catch a cold, you have to let it run its course.”
But in the meantime, HealthAtoZ.com offered some “natural” cold remedies:
• Aromatherapy, which uses the aromatic essence of plants to “rouse” the immune system. For a cold, add several drops of a pure, natural oil (such as eucalyptus, lavender, tea tree oil or rosemary) to a hot bath at the first sign of illness, and
• Chicken soup has been used as a cold therapy for years. Sipping the soup helps clear congestion. Other theories are that chicken soup has drug-like agents similar to those in modern cold medicines, and it helps keep a check on inflammatory white blood cells, which cause cold symptoms like coughs and congestion.
Some other “natural” cures that have not been proven to help, but which many swear by, include: echinacea; garlic; ginger; herbal tea; green and black teas; vitamin C; and zinc.
What works for one may not work for another, but natural therapies may enable drivers to heal more quickly while still maintaining the ability to keep on trucking.
Barb Kampbell of The Trucker staff can be reached for comment at barkkampbell@thetrucker.com.